354 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [April 8, 



ticisms of Messrs. Agassiz and Schimper on his views of the Scandi- 

 navian phaenomena, published in the Comptes Rendus of January 19, 

 I will here simply state, that in his description of the deep and sinu- 

 ous furrows so frequent in Norway, M. Durocher most clearly esta- 

 blishes, that such furrows could only have been produced by violent 

 currents of water transporting drifted materials. Most thoroughly, 

 indeed, do I agree with Durocher, as will be seen in the sequel, that 

 the accumulations of gravel and sand spread over the low plateaux 

 and plains of Dalecarlia can never by any possibility be explained 

 in the way insisted on by Agassiz and Schimper, namely by alter- 

 nations of glacial moraines and sandy beds formed by the dissolution 

 of glaciers *. 



Viewed as a whole, the detritus of southern Norway and the ad- 

 jacent portions of Sweden may be considered to have swept over 

 Denmark and Holstein to Brabant and the northern provinces of 



* In M. Durocher's memoir read before the Geological Society of France in 

 November last (Bull. vol. iii. p. 65), after describing the different forms of erosion, 

 striation and polish to which the rocks of many varieties of composition have been 

 subjected, that author dwells much on certain deep and narrow gullies (often only 

 one to three feet wide), which, even when tortuous, sinuous and branching, have 

 their sides polished and also scratched in the prevailing direction of the transport 

 of the drift. Arguing that glaciers never could have produced such results, par- 

 ticularly on the upper or overhanging faces of some of the narrow cavities which 

 are so polished and striated, he comes to the same conclusion as that already pub- 

 lished by my friends and myself, " that the erosive apparatus or instruments must 

 have been to a certain extent not only fluid, but also partly solid and composed of 

 blocks of gravel and sand, the same materials, as is well known, which etch and po- 

 lish the rocks subjacent to glaciers." While repudiating, as we do, the possible 

 application of the Alpine glacier theory to the chief phsenomena of Scandina-\da, M. 

 Durocher rests to some extent on the value of proofs of aqueous action which we 

 have only partially and imperfectly seen (the long sinuous and deep channels), and 

 his conclusions are therefore of additional value in the argument. The reader 

 who will consult what we had printed (Russia, &c., ante cit., vol. i. p. 540, et seg.) 

 before the communication of M. Durocher appeared, and mil also compare what 

 he has enunciated with the observations which I now offer, will perceive, how- 

 ever, that besides the distinctions in the phsenomena cited by him and by our- 

 selves (all equally subversive of the application of the glacier theory to Scandina- 

 via), M. Durocher has adopted theoretical views of diluvial action essentially dif- 

 fering from those which I have advocated and still adhere to. He clings, for 

 example, to the ancient idea of water passing over pre-existing continents, and 

 appeals to the former action of seas standing at higher levels; whilst I consider the 

 level of the ocean to have been unchangeable, and refer nearly all the phsenomena 

 treated of in this memoir to action produced under the present level of the sea 

 before certain vibrations of the surface had elevated the great mass of northern 

 Europe from beneath it. Again, the extensive sands (all evidently formed under 

 water) which he describes as chiefly existing towards the frontier of Sweden and 

 Norway, are quite as striking in Scania, the very southern point of Sweden. 

 There are, besides, two essential matters of fact in this memoir to which M. 

 Durocher does not advert; 1st, that the great angular blocks are superposed on 

 the rolled detritus throughout Scandinavia ; and 2ndly, that large districts north 

 of Upsala are invariably occupied by these angular blocks in situ. These essential 

 distinctions, with a description of the drift and its relations in Gothland, consti- 

 tute the chief claims of this notice to the attention of geologists ; for I quite coin- 

 cide with M. Durocher, that much as has been written on them, " the study of 

 these facts is only commencing, and that as yet we have only a part of the mate- 

 rials required to construct a durable theory." 



